Today's Family & Kids Activities in Queens-Jul 19

July 19, 2013
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Daily activities for kids and the family are abound in Queens! Whether you want to spend the day with your children at a zoo, a museum, or just outdoors, we've got it all here. Making plans for next weekend for your family? Take a glance at the NY Metro Parents' calendar!

Cheer on David Wright, Marlon Byrd and the Amazin's when they take on Ryan Howard and their NL East rivals from the City of Brotherly Love. Grammy nominated rapper Nas, returns home to Queens to perform a post-game concert.

Join Mister G, aka Ben Gundersheimer, in the LICM Theater for this fun, family concert. This performance will feature songs from his award-winning 2012 album, �Chocolalala,� plus many more. Inspired by his concert tours throughout Latin America, the album features original, bilingual songs spanning a range of musical styles from bossa nova to ska, funk to folk.

This mixed media exhibit by artist Iandry Randriamandroso is created from discarded, crushed aluminum cans found on the streets, and cardboard and burlap from local grocery, along with wordless hand-made books about a fish and a crushed can and illustrates how growth is disrupted by invasive species. The exhibit is on display in the Visitor & Administration Building Gallery.

Step back into the late 1800s and watch history come alive as cowboys saddle up and engage in a shooting match. Experience the excitement of the Old West and witness a fast action event in which cowboys with single action revolvers are scored on
accuracy and time.

Puppets have been crafted for thousands of years and used for storytelling around the world. Join in the fun as you design and engineer your own stick and rod puppet. Use exciting materials to build your own character as you learn how to create and operate your new creation. Develop your puppets character and learn how to perform for family and friends. This program runs through August 30.

Baseball was Louis Armstrong's favorite sport and he followed it passionately. A longtime Brooklyn Dodgers fan, Louis switched to the New York Mets in the late 60s, even attending the deciding game 5 of the 1969 World Series. This exhibit includes photos and artifacts exploring Louis's relationship with the game.
Though a Mets and Dodgers fan, this exhibit features Louis's connections to the Yankees, namely through his manager, Joe Glaser, who was a legendary Yankee fan who attended nearly every home game. When Louis was mobbed by fans during a tour of Buenos Aires in 1957, he asked Glaser to have Yogi Berra send a catcher's mask to protect his "chops." Swingin' with the All Stars includes a photo of Louis in Yogi's mask!
Includes Louis's handwritten list of "my four choice Dodger players at all times," a photo of Louis backstage with Dodgers Don Newcombe and Junior Gilliam, a rare Louis Armstrong and Ella Fitzgerald "baseball card" from Holland, and one of Louis's famed tape box collages featuring a photo of the trumpeter with New York Yankees Phil Rizzuto and Joe Collins.
The exhibit also contains information about Louis's "Secret 9" baseball team. In the summer of 1931, Louis returned to New Orleans for the first time since leaving it for Chicago in 1922. While there, Armstrong took interest in a sandlot team, bought them brand new equipment and uniforms and renamed them "Armstrong's Secret 9." The exhibit will include a photo of the Secret 9, an advertisement for one of their games taken from one of Louis's oldest scrapbooks, and a humorous excerpt from an unpublished 1955 manuscript in which Armstrong details how the players were so proud of their new uniforms that they refused to slide and lost every game!

Kids can create a video game, practice their DJ Skills, or build a roller coaster while exploring how each uses math and science. Find out how videogame developers, music producers, roller coaster designers and other creative problem solvers use math and science to meet their design challenges. Price includes NYSCi admission.

Get ready to zoom, spin, splash, swing, and soar your way through acres of amusement park rides from the cooling log flume, to the famous Dragon Coaster, and all your other favorites!
Admission Prices:
- Starting Friday, May 24: $30 unlimited rides; $20 Junior (under 48") Spectator admission (no rides) is free for Westchester County residents and $10 for non-residents.
Season Passes:
- $95 for unlimited rides all season, with a $15 discount for Westchester residents.
- $35 for spectator admission all season (no rides), for non-residents of Westchester County.
Acceptable proof of Westchester residency is a Westchester County Park Pass; New York State driver's license or non-driver ID; or a photo ID or report card from a Westchester County school.
For the season schedule go to ryeplayland.org or call the park at 914-813-7000. Use the website link to join the Playland E-Club and receive valuable discounts all season long.

Queens Botanical Garden is pleased to participate in Blue Star Museums. This is a collaboration between National Endowment for the Arts, Blue Star Families, the Department of Defense, and more than 1,800 museums across America to offer free admission to all active duty military personnel and their families from Memorial Day through Labor Day 2013. The complete list of participating museums is available at www.arts.gov/bluestarmuseums.
Blue Star Military Families can enjoy the grounds and plant displays over the coming months. Check the website (www.queensbotanical.org) for special events, such as Summer Solstice on June 23rd and the evening concerts in our Music in the Garden series, to which they are warmly invited.
Blue Star Museums is a collaboration among the National Endowment for the Arts, Blue Star Families, the Department of Defense, and more than 1,800 museums across America. The program runs from Memorial Day, May 27, 2013 through Labor Day, September 2, 2013. The free admission program is available to any bearer of a Geneva Convention common access card (CAC), a DD Form 1173 ID card, or a DD Form 1173-1 ID card, which includes active duty U.S. military - Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines, Coast Guard, as well as members of the National Guard and Reserve, U.S. Public Health
Service Commissioned Corps, NOAA Commissioned Corps - and up to five family members. Some special or limited-time museum exhibits may not be included in this free admission program. For questions on particular exhibits or museums, please contact the museum directly. To find out which museums are participating, visit www.arts.gov/bluestarmuseums. The site includes a list of participating museums and a map to help with visit planning. This is the latest NEA program to bring quality arts programs to the military, veterans, and their families. Other NEA programs for the military have included the NEA/Walter Reed Healing Arts Partnership; Great American Voices Military Base Tour; and Shakespeare in American Communities Military Base Tour.

In the Everett Children's Adventure Garden, adventure abounds for kids of all ages with art and science activities such as mixing paints and creating science notebooks. Kids will discover their inner scientists and ask questions about the world. Each child will practice problem-solving skills before setting off on an adventure to find medicinal plants. In the tradition of the Renaissance, students will also use an album amicorum, or "Book of Memories," to record any plant observations or descriptions that they make during their visit.

This market serves the Long Island City and Astoria communities with farm-fresh fruits and vegetables and family-friendly activities every Saturday. With workshops, yoga classes, exhibitions and stunning views, the Socrates Sculpture Park Greenmarket is a great place to spend a Saturday morning. Shoppers will find a bountiful selection of seasonal produce from the Black Dirt region of Orange County, Mexican specialty produce from Richmond County, orchard fruit and juice, meat, poultry and eggs and multi-ethnic artisan breads. Free cooking demonstrations are held weekly featuring seasonal items from the market, and family friendly activities take place throughout the season.

Get fresh, local and seasonal produce, nuts, coffee and nut butters from the Farmer's Market. Every Friday, June 21 through November 22, from 8:30am to 4pm, on Dahlia Avenue off Main Street, directly outside the Garden gates.

Enjoy this market located along an entrance to Elmhurst hospital, which offers a variety of local produce, orchard fruit, picked at its peak of ripeness, hearty vegetables grown in the nutrient-rich soil of Orange County's "Black Dirt" region, and freshly baked bread, pastries and granola. The market, which is open on Tuesdays thru November 26, promotes healthy living, offering recipes and cooking demonstrations to entice even the most timid of eaters and home cooks.

The core exhibition of the Museum, a one-of-a-kind experience that immerses visitors in the creative and technical process of producing, promoting, and presenting films, television shows, and digital entertainment. Occupying 15,000 square feet of the Museum's second and third floors, the exhibition reveals the skills, material resources, and artistic decisions that go into making moving images. Behind the Screen also introduces visitors to the history of the moving image, from nineteenth-century optical toys to the present-day impact of digital tools on film editing and post-production. Children under the age of fourteen must be accompanied by an adult of eighteen years or older.
Artifacts: The exhibition incorporates approximately 1,400 artifacts from the Museum's collection of the material culture of the moving image. These include historic film and television cameras, projectors, television sets, sound recording equipment, costumes, set design sketches and models, make-up, fan magazines, posters, and an outstanding collection of licensed merchandise—dolls, toys, board games, lunch boxes, and more. The Museum has also been a pioneer in collecting video arcade and console games, which are on exhibit and available for play by visitors. Recently acquired objects on view include makeup used on the stars of Sex in the City, a mechanical prop designed by Mike Marino for a climactic scene in Black Swan, and molds and prototypes produced during the creation of a King Kong action figure.
Computer-based interactive experiences: Visitors may record their own movements as a sequence of still photographs that can be printed out and made into a flipbook; create their own stop-motion animations, which they can save and email; record their voices over dialogue from a film, following the same procedure that actors use when dubbing their lines in post-production; choose sound effects to add to the images of well-known movies and television shows; add music to scenes from movies, and to experience how music affects mood and tone.
Audio-visual material: Behind the Screen includes nearly four hours of audio-visual material that ranges from film clips related to the artifacts on display; projections of the earliest kinetoscope films, The Great Train Robbery, and selections from The Jazz Singer and Nanook of the North, all of which bring key moments in film history vividly to life; special videos, including The First Movies about Etienne Jules Marey and Chuck Workman's Precious Images; and a simulation of a live TV control room, taking visitors inside the room where director Bill Webb called the shots for the broadcast of a game between the New York Mets and San Diego Padres.
Commissioned artworks: Artworks created especially for incorporation into Behind the Screen are Tut's Fever by Red Grooms and Lysiane Luong, a real movie theater equipped for video that seats thirty-five; TV Lounge by Jim Isermann, an environment resembling a 1960s living room; and Feral Fount by Gregory Barsamian, a stroboscopic zoetrope using 97 sculptures rotating on an armature to create a short animation.

Join a cool club in Queens! Kids receive a membership card, great discounts at participating Queens Center stores and a special gift on your birthday. It's easy to join. Just grab Mom, Dad or a grown up and stop by Guest Services, Level 1, Macy*s Wing (across from Applebee's), and have them fill out a membership form for you. Then join us at the Monthly Meetings on the 1st Saturday of every month and be a part of the fun!

Located in one of the most diverse neighborhoods in the city, the recently expanded Jackson Heights Greenmarket is the largest and busiest Greenmarket in Queens. Wrapping around the edge of Travers Park, this bustling Sunday market draws a large crowd of families, long-time residents and young couples who come out to shop, enjoy the lively scene, and meet and greet their neighbors. The Friends of Travers Park designated 78th a "playstreet" where they host family-friendly events each Sunday adjacent to the market. Reflecting the culinary diversity of the neighborhood, the Jackson Heights market offers a broad selection of vegetables, fruit, eggs, fish, honey, chicken and specialty Mexican produce.

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NYMetroParents is the parenting division of Davler Media Group and encompasses 9 regional print magazines within the greater NY metro region as well as the website (nymetroparents.com). Following the success of the first NYC parenting resource book, "Big Apple Baby," BIG APPLE PARENT was launched in 1985; it is now the largest publisher of regional parenting content in the United States.